Abstract
This project gave me a space to speculate on products that might be in the future market with changes in social, climatic, technological, ecological, economic, and political conditions. These products were prototyped to present a strong visualization of the concept design and placed within a world as products found in a Kirana shop created using "Gather Town".
In addition, these products were imagined through another worldbuilding experiment that led to the creation of a Miro board game called "Survival of the Scavengers".
As the project explores three sub-areas; Concept design and product prototype, the Worldbuilding of "Kirana store" in Gather town, and the Boardgame in Miro; "Survival of the scavengers", the following documentation provides a brief of the journey as I explore and navigate through different mediums while I develop the projects.
To skip research:
Project duration
Three weeks
Project
World Building, Product design and Table top game design
Involvement
Involvement
Involvement
Discursive design, Playframes, Concept design, Product design, Narrative and world-building, Game design and mechanics,
Facilitator
Facilitator
Paul Anthony
Speculating products
The project started taking its initial form during "Kirana cultures", a studio that provided us the opportunity to take a look at products that are currently on the market, how they were in the past, and how things might be in the future. Excerpt from the studio - "we aim to unpack built worlds, the rules in them and the infrastructure that allows for certain behaviours, cultures, and rituals to be termed normal or acceptable and taboos and anomalies as being in contrast to the norm. Using play frames and discursive design we use board games and affordances of Miro to understand the relationship between game rules and pieces on the board, and the overlaps and differences between law and technology."
During this experiment, I speculated on how products may appear, feel, and function differently in the future due to changes in social, technological, ecological, economic, and political conditions. This became an initiation to a worldbuilding exercise where I began looking into products that are sold at Kirana shops in Kerala, how they were in the past and for the people and how would they be in the future.
I wanted my speculation to have an interplay between fiction and the real world. The 2018 flood in Kerala was one of the worst floods in nearly a century. Houses, roads, electric poles, paddy fields, towns all submerged under landslides and overflow of dams due to heavy consecutive rainfall. This event took a personal toll on me as my family stayed in the landslide-prone region with a red alert and I was not. With no electricity for over a week, there was minimal communication between the regions severely affected by the flood and those away.
This account was taken to speculate a day when landmasses of Earth are submerged due to a rise in sea level. I imagined a day when people would have to escape and survive on wooden rafts. This concept was later adapted to the premise of my board game.
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2018 Flood in Kerala
Market Research
There are more than 6.65 million Kirana stores in India, according to Nielsen Norman Group. Despite being under lockdown for two months, India's 1.3 billion people have been predominantly shopping at Kirana stores for necessities like food, beverages, personal care products, and household items. As a result of unexpected changes in consumer behavior trends, a new normal has emerged as a humble relationship between the local Kirana store and its customers. I wanted to understand Kirana stores through the experiences of both retailers and consumers. I visited a couple of Kirana stores, had conversations with the shopkeepers, asked permission to capture pictures for store/product references.
Kirana stores
Consumer Research
Consumer likeability of Kirana stores.
Responses from user interview of 6 participants conducted in local Kirana stores.
Consumer problems with Kirana stores
Responses from user interview of 6 participants conducted in local Kirana stores.
Focus Group:
I chose three participants (consumers) to gather their Kirana store experience since 1950s. I was able to gather relevant data that showed how products, transportation of trade, pricing, product weighing scales, packaging, advertising changed and evolved over years. This shows how the kirana stores adapts to changes in time, socio-cultural or technological underpinnings.
Product Prototype
I envisioned my products to be of need by humans living on the water in the year for decades. The Kirana shop then becomes their one and only means to acquire their supplies. The shop will only have selective products that can run out of stock anytime. When the world runs on XP as currency, each person is also in dire need to survive the difficult times to earn.
The products were imagined by their need in the future, its characteristics, its affordability. After the concepts were created, I prototyped them using scrap materials, hot glue, and metallic matte spray paint.
Packaging of the products was the next step. Here is an unboxing video of the products.
Gather Town Group Worldbuilding
As a studio, along with peers we created a Kirana shop within a speculative future world that was imagined using Gather town. Taking insights from our consumer research, the Gather town space was designed. This included store-space design, way finding, adverts, and instructional design. Managing teamwork on miro, bringing together each peer's speculative future for a combined world-building as narrative and making "narrative onboarding video", creating wayfinding, and building map within Gather town were some of the work I undertook.
Gather Town Team
Abinaya Nagappan
Adithya Jain
Aniruddha Naik
Chinmay
Shivam Gupta
Pranambigai
Chrizzy Christopher
Here is the link to Gathertown!
Here is the link to Gathertown!
Here is the link to Gathertown!
Here is the link to world "Narrative onboarding video"
Connections that led to creation of Board game
The space was an eye-opener to socio-technical cultures, an interplay of powerplay, marginalization, and despotism. We looked into a couple of readings and games to understand the concepts.
Emerging questions that helped me during worldbuilding and gameplay design:
If I were my own game character, a scavenger who is always kept to side-lines, marginalized because of powerplays, and given unequal treatment, I would not stay idle, unlike my real-life self that waits for reasons to feel motivated to do anything. I would explore every nook and corner of the game, explore the world, form alliances with those with skills that can help me start riots, gain power, power to battle opponents, conquer territories to take ownership away from the privileged for the people.
These questions and learnings guided me as I worked on building the narrative, gameplay rules, and mechanics.
Game design
The board game is set in the year 2070 where people, after “The great flood”, an apocalyptic event is living their lives on wooden rafts scavenging their way through the end of times. But just like any other world and its societies, there is a divide of power and wealth, marginalizing those who are struggling to survive in the cold endless sea.
A survival game where the players will place their meeple on their wooden raft, explore for lost lands, accumulate points through scavenging, assign their followers tasks, capture lands and treasures, decide their life journey. Only those who make the most judicious placements will gain the points and those with luck and strategy win the game.
We were asked to build the game on Miro. This medium felt like a constraint for me initially as I brainstormed for rules. Realizing how important it is to learn how to communicate using different mediums, I had to make use of the available affordances in the application to create a board game. As I brainstormed for the narrative, I took down gameplay rules. Rules of a game create walls that take the player through a narrative.
I tried to show ever existing social divide even after an apocalyptic event, where the happiness of the wealthy, the privileged are in the hands of those disposed and live-in misery on the cold sea. Through the game, the players take the role of scavengers seeking to survive during these dire times, traveling and exploring the endless sea in search of left-over land they can call home. They live collecting scrap and fishing and providing these
supplies to the privileged who knew about “The great flood” who had wealth, wealth enough to secure shelter in the spacecraft so they may survive. As scavengers, due to unfair treatment over decades, they seek to take back control. The gameplay starts with a mission to earn more wealth and territories. The players have to strategize each of their moves as their life decisions may be hindered by planetary decisions or those that remain in power.
Survival of the Scavengers
Board game premise:
“Scavengers as you may or may not know, are not particularly friendly, considerate, or generous. Living on the water for years and years after the
"dawn of the flood" as they now call it in the year 2070, they have become ruthless, ruthless to survive. They are on their own seeking to survive in the cold seawater, among filth and scrap in search of food, land, and wealth. As envoys, they provide supplies to the privileged, who knew that flood was coming, who had wealth, wealth enough to secure shelter in the "The New Hope Spacecraft" so they may survive. Oh, the scavengers, the ones left behind, are surviving on wooden rafts. For supplies, they earn points that can be used to purchase basic necessities from the Kirana store. A scavenger's life is hard, they live in fear of losing their collected supplies
and getting captured by pirates. After decades of unfair treatment by "The New Hope", a riot broke out between the two parties. For the convenience of "The New Hope", a spacecraft spot is up for grabs for a scavenger who can gather 60XP.
In this game you will play the role of a scavenger, trying to survive through hardships and strategizing your life goals. Would you rather live on a spaceship, rule the colonies, be a pirate, or be a scavenger forever?
But as the saying goes, life is not easy. One can never be sure whether your life decisions align with the planetary decisions. Now let's see if fortune is in your favor.”
Here is the link to the game rule book.
Here is the link to the game on Miro, Navigate to the board titled "Survival of the Scavengers"
Here is the link to the game on Miro, Navigate to the board titled "Survival of the Scavengers"
Play test 1
The game was play tested with two players. The players were onboarded with the game interface and rules for 10 mins before gameplay.
Observations during and gameplay
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As the game requires attention and recollection of new game rules, it was not easy for the players to recall the provided rules.
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Tile draw: Player need to draw two tiles from the deck, which needs to be placed in their tile slot. Users who are proficient with Miro move the tiles after grouping right after the draw to their slots. Some player tends to play one tile right after drawing before placing them in their respective slots. This leaves another tile on the board. The user after playing tends to forget to move the second tile to their slot.
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A player posed an interest to play both the tiles that were drawn.
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Users tend to sell fish and scrap before placing them on the Raft. The goods need to be placed on the raft as they need to travel to the Kirana store. This leaves the user with more space on the raft which instead lets them not purchase Noah's arc.
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The difference btw meeple and henchman-not consistent on the rules
The above observations were noted and iterated before playtest 2.
Questions
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Can I position the player area differently?
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Can I move chaos and luck tile to a different spot?
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Could I create a new set of chaos or luck cards that uses Miro Affordances?
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What happens when a player purchases goods?
Play test 2
Playtesting was carried out with three other players. The players were onboarded with the game interface and rules for 5 mins before gameplay and further rules were provided during gameplay so as to make it easier to recall their actions. The participants enjoyed the gameplay. There are a couple of iterations to be made to make wayfinding easier across the board.
Reflection
As a creative, I am passionate about bringing the worlds I imagine to life. These worlds, ideas, norms that impact our culture, technology, and society and how we as human being are subjected to all these experiences is what I would like to continue learning and making.
What makes me passionate about board games, is its approach- the combination of technology and creativity and how multiple disciples come together to create and experience. I will be working on the visual design as I further work on the project.